Home

On the Home tab of JW Library you will find several categories including:

• Daily Text
• Favorites
• Frequently Used
• Teaching Toolbox
• What's New
• Online

It is often possible to navigate through these sections by turning the VoiceOver rotor to containers, and then swipeing down or up with 1 finger.

Warning, sometimes it harmlessly fails. If the button for the title of any publication, video, or other item is spoken your next swipe up or down will no longer move by container. Instead VoiceOver will move through the options in that publication's Actions menu. You will need to turn the rotor to containers again to move between sections.

You will notice that most of the sections are also headings. It can work to move between them with VoiceOver rotor heading navigation, but container seems to be more reliable. The exception is if you have set up a custom Voiceover command for moving by headings as I've described here. Custom Commands

You will also notice that when swipeing up the items announced are not the same as when swipeing down. I can't explain why this happens.

Daily Text

Read this page to learn how to find and read the Daily text.

Favorites section

The favorites section will initially be empty, but it can be filled with the publications you choose to place there. Skip down to the "To Favorite a publication" heading on this page to learn how.

Frequently Used section

The Frequently Used section will also be empty at first, but will fill up on its own as you use JW Library more.

Teaching Toolbox section

This section is filled with items that are likely to be used in the ministry. Opening these videos and publications from the Teaching Toolbox is much simpler than locating them from the Library Tab.

It is also possible to switch the language of the items that appear here, and picking a language from the list is possible with Voiceover. Picking the correct publication in the correct language is much more difficult.

What's new? section:

This list of publications is refreshed regularly to show items that have recently been released or updated. You will likely find it useful to swipe through this section frequently.

As you swipe right or left through the publications in this section VoiceOver will announce their name, type, Duration or size, Language, and how long ago it was released.

If no size is given for a publication that is not audio or video, then you know that it has already been downloaded.

Downloading Publications

Double tapping on a publication that isn't downloaded will start the download. The publication will not automattically opened when the download finishes, so you will need to come back to it after some time has passed. You will not be told that the download has completed, but if you touch the publication' again and swipe down through the Action menu Download will no longer be an option.

Of course, Internet access is required for downloading. You may be prompted to allow downloading, especially if you are on a cellular connection instead of on WiFi.

If you double tap a publication that has already been downloaded it will open. No Internet access is required to use publications that have already been downloaded.

Audio and video publications are streamed instead of downloaded by default when you double tap them. This saves space on your device. If you know you will want to replay a media publication, you can choose to download it instead.

To download an audio or video publication: instead of double tapping the publication, swipe down with 1 finger to move through the Actions Menu. When you hear download double tap.

Audio items will just start downloading, but videos will ask you to choose the resolution or quality of the video. If you will only be using the video for yourself you can choose the lowest resolution. If you are downloading the video to play for anyone sighted you should download the highest resolution so it doesn't look bad on your high resolution screen.

To update a publication:

When on the name of an item in any list of publications, swipe down with 1 finger until you hear Update, then double tap.

To delete a downloaded publication:

When on the name of an item in any list of publications, swipe down with 1 finger until you hear More, then double tap.

The menu that appears on the screen is the same one that sighted non-VoiceOver users get when they tap the three dots after each publication.

Voiceover will likely say, "Share Link," as the menu appears.

swipe right through the options until you hear delete button, then double tap it.

As you probably noticed, this same More menu used when deleting publications can also be used to do other things.

To favorite a publication:

Locate the publication you want to favorite in any list of publications.

swipe down with 1 finger until you hear More, then double tap.

When the More menu appears swipe right through the buttons that show the available options.

When you hear Add to Favorites button, double tap.

The same method can be used for removing a publication from Favorites.

Online

Here are several buttons that will take you out of JW Library and open various sites from jw.org in Safari, or which ever browser is your default.

The screenreader accessibility of Watchtower Online Library is not as good as jw.org or this JW Library publication.